Forward/reverse in a mobile phone's music player

11 Dec 2007 - 12:20pm

Last reply:
7 years ago

10 replies

1638 reads

Sachendra

2005

Hi,

Initially mobile phones used to have Play, Pause, Previous, Next (in
some cases Stop instead of Pause). Of late, quite a few mobile phones
have started adding Forward and Reverse within the current song.

Does Forward/Reverse add any solid value in a music player for mobile
phones or is it an unnecessary feature creep which can be dropped?

-- Sachendra Yadav

Comments

11 Dec 2007 - 6:30pm

Jack L. Moffett

2005

It is certainly useful when listening to audio that isn't music, such
as podcasts. I expect users do not often fast-forward through a 4
minute song, although there are use cases for it.

> Hi,>> Initially mobile phones used to have Play, Pause, Previous, Next (in> some cases Stop instead of Pause). Of late, quite a few mobile phones> have started adding Forward and Reverse within the current song.>> Does Forward/Reverse add any solid value in a music player for mobile> phones or is it an unnecessary feature creep which can be dropped?>> -- Sachendra Yadav> ________________________________________________________________> *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah*> February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA> Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/>> ________________________________________________________________> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help

12 Dec 2007 - 3:48am

Bruno Figueiredo

2007

I think that only user research can tell you that. Sometimes I think
we can safely drop a feature from an application only to find out in
user research that users want that feature after all.

I think it is a really useful feature for (as has been mentioned)
Podcasts and those annoying 'secret tracks' that come 15 minutes into
the last track on a CD. If I haven't been paying enough attention when
ripping, or don't have the time to edit the track it is very useful to
be able to skip through the 11 minutes of silence!
It could be argued that this is initially bad design by the
manufacturers who could just put the track on the CD as a normal track.

James

12 Dec 2007 - 6:00am

Jonathan Koren

2007

On Dec 11, 2007, at 9:20 AM, Sachendra Yadav wrote:

> Hi,>> Initially mobile phones used to have Play, Pause, Previous, Next (in> some cases Stop instead of Pause). Of late, quite a few mobile phones> have started adding Forward and Reverse within the current song.>> Does Forward/Reverse add any solid value in a music player for mobile> phones or is it an unnecessary feature creep which can be dropped?

Depends on how the fwd/rev buttons are implemented. Are they separate
buttons, or are they integrated into the next/prev like many cd
players? (i.e. Press the button to skip the track. Hold the button to
scan within the current track.) If the fwd/rev functionality is
mapped to the current physical buttons, then who cares? It's a
transparent feature, and it's not like fwd/rev is overly complex and
buggy. Many people might not even notice that the functionality
exists, and people looking for the functionality will have been
conditioned to expect it on those buttons from interactions with cd
players. If new physical buttons are added, then why was this method
chosen? Is the interface too cluttered? Are the buttons too small?

If you mean "why would someone even use this functionality?" Then
there's plenty of reasons. podcasts, skipping 8 minutes of silence to
get to the "hidden" song on an album. (Now there's a usability
issue! What's up with "hiding" songs?)

Adding features isn't bad per se. It's the addition of features that
interfere with using the product that is bad.

> Hi,>> Initially mobile phones used to have Play, Pause, Previous, Next (in> some cases Stop instead of Pause). Of late, quite a few mobile phones> have started adding Forward and Reverse within the current song.>> Does Forward/Reverse add any solid value in a music player for mobile> phones or is it an unnecessary feature creep which can be dropped?>> -- Sachendra Yadav> ________________________________________________________________> *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah*> February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA> Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/>> ________________________________________________________________> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help>

As audio has become one of the key selling points of handsets, it's very
important to give maximum feel of audio player on mobile without
compromise on user experience.
So, if we can effectively add Forward/reverse functionality to handset
player, it will be solid values add.

A globally accepted way of handling Forward/reverse is via NEXT/PREVIOUS
key.

While playing audio; if you press NEXT soft key for long, it will start
forwarding the audio and on keyUP it will again start playing the audio
from newly forwarded location.

In case audio is in paused state, it will remain in same paused state
after getting forwarded to new location.

Yesterday, the following message came in on a local, but low bandwidth,
UE
list I'm on:

One of my design teams is asking me: "Should we follow
the Office standard of the ribbon, the Vista standard of
the drop-down menu (menu bar), or a hybrid of the two?

Wow, just what I always wanted: a vague question about
standards that has no right answer and huge consequences.

I thought the question might get more traction here, seeing as the IxDA
list
has a much larger membership. I've CC'd Jerome, the original poster, who
you
might want to include on any replies as I don't know if he's on this
list.

:-j(enni)

~~~~~
jenni merrifield -- jenniferm at cgtvgames.com
CGTV Games -- The Power of Interactive Entertainment
~~~~~
Designing to requirements
And walking on water
Are easy if both are frozen
~~~~~

I'm wondering if the ribbon is a solution for a large (overly complex)
set of features where the speed of user performance is not a primary
design driver?

Also, I don't yet have Vista installed on my computer, so I confess I'm
not really sure what my Dev team (which is 16 hours ahead in Australia;
I'm in Canada) means when they say "Vista menus" -- is this just a menu
bar?

My original question:

One of my design teams is asking me: "Should we follow
the Office standard of the ribbon, the Vista standard of
the drop-down menu (menu bar), or a hybrid of the two?

Wow, just what I always wanted: a vague question about
standards that has no right answer and huge consequences.

Yesterday, the following message came in on a local, but low bandwidth,
UE list I'm on:

One of my design teams is asking me: "Should we follow
the Office standard of the ribbon, the Vista standard of
the drop-down menu (menu bar), or a hybrid of the two?

Wow, just what I always wanted: a vague question about
standards that has no right answer and huge consequences.

I thought the question might get more traction here, seeing as the IxDA
list has a much larger membership. I've CC'd Jerome, the original
poster, who you might want to include on any replies as I don't know if
he's on this list.

With respect to broader political projects, is anyone else familiar
with http://www.theyworkforyou.com/? They've done a fantastic job of
combining what seems to be every ounce of information about the UK
parliament into one place. At a glance I can spot a number of things
that could be done to enhance the value of the information presented,
but it might serve as a useful model for an admittedly quite large
project?

Michael: I love the idea of a pro-bono repository. There's been some
talk here in Toronto about creating some events around doing work for
charities/NGOs (somewhat in the vein of the Masters of the Web
competition - anyone else remember those from '97/98?). Maybe the
idea could be expanded to act as a means by which such groups could
source pro-bono assistance from a variety of experts, including
Ix/Ux/IA etc.?

Initially mobile phones used to have Play, Pause, Previous, Next (in
some cases Stop instead of Pause). Of late, quite a few mobile phones
have started adding Forward and Reverse within the current song.

Does Forward/Reverse add any solid value in a music player for mobile
phones or is it an unnecessary feature creep which can be dropped?

It is certainly an interesting question. I am using Office 2007, but not
Vista, which is just the way I like it.

The move from [long, textual, multi-level menus with auto-hiding and
cryptic
icon-only toolbars] to a [tabbed arrangement of combinations of icons
with
text, and one level deep sub-sections, optimized around common actions]
seems like a clear step toward making complex applications more usable
to
novice or irregular users. The toolbars were an advanced user feature,
which
supported very rapid activation - IF you could remember what the icon
meant,
and you could click the small button, and the function you wanted was
there
to begin with. I've often spend long periods of time (in old menu-style
apps) trying to find features in menus that I knew must be there, but
with
several levels of embedding, and no graphical cues they can be very hard
to
find and remember the location of.

So, in some cases the new ribbon will be slower (particular for
transitioning users struggling to find the location of features they are
used to using). However I think it represents a better balance between
novice and advanced functions. I'm not exactly sure which "vista menus"
you're referring to, but textual menus will always suffer from the usual
problems of not explaining their content well, little graphical
guidance,
and the potential of multiple levels increasing cognitive load for the
user
(which is why the Start menu is so poorly designed).

Also, I think any Fitt's law gains that would have been gained by not
using
the ribbon will be lost due to the slow response times of Vista. =)

> Thanks, Jennifer, and hello, all; I've just joined your list.>> I'm wondering if the ribbon is a solution for a large (overly complex)set
> of features where the speed of user performance is not a primarydesign
> driver?>> Also, I don't yet have Vista installed on my computer, so I confessI'm
> not really sure what my Dev team (which is 16 hours ahead inAustralia; I'm
> in Canada) means when they say "Vista menus" -- is this just a menubar?
>> My original question:>> One of my design teams is asking me: "Should we follow> the Office standard of the ribbon, the Vista standard of> the drop-down menu (menu bar), or a hybrid of the two?>> Wow, just what I always wanted: a vague question about> standards that has no right answer and huge consequences.>> -=- Jerome>> -----Original Message-----> From: Jenni Merrifield> Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:30 AM> Cc: Jerome Ryckborst> Subject: Office or Vista - That is the Question>> Yesterday, the following message came in on a local, but lowbandwidth, UE
> list I'm on:>> One of my design teams is asking me: "Should we follow> the Office standard of the ribbon, the Vista standard of> the drop-down menu (menu bar), or a hybrid of the two?>> Wow, just what I always wanted: a vague question about> standards that has no right answer and huge consequences.>> I thought the question might get more traction here, seeing as theIxDA
> list has a much larger membership. I've CC'd Jerome, the originalposter,
> who you might want to include on any replies as I don't know if he'son this
> list.>> :-j(enni)>> ________________________________________________________________> *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah*> February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA> Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/>> ________________________________________________________________> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help>

At the moment Vista has a very low adoption rate and a very high "Oh,
my God -- let's go back to Windows!" rate...So, I think that at this
point it makes a lot of sense to stick with the Windows
standards...generally speaking.

However, if you're building an internal app for a group that will be
required to use Vista then, I'd use the Vista standards....and...

If there's anything in the Vista standard that you think is done
better than it's done in the Windows standards, you might want to
take this chance to incorporate it.

...or you can design for another operating system all together: *nix,
OSX, CP/M ;-)

kt

At 10:50 AM -0800 12/11/07, Jerome Ryckborst wrote:
>Thanks, Jennifer, and hello, all; I've just joined your list.>>I'm wondering if the ribbon is a solution for a large (overly>complex) set of features where the speed of user performance is not>a primary design driver?>>Also, I don't yet have Vista installed on my computer, so I confess>I'm not really sure what my Dev team (which is 16 hours ahead in>Australia; I'm in Canada) means when they say "Vista menus" -- is>this just a menu bar?>>My original question:>> One of my design teams is asking me: "Should we follow> the Office standard of the ribbon, the Vista standard of> the drop-down menu (menu bar), or a hybrid of the two?>> Wow, just what I always wanted: a vague question about> standards that has no right answer and huge consequences.>>-=- Jerome>>-----Original Message----->From: Jenni Merrifield>Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 9:30 AM>Cc: Jerome Ryckborst>Subject: Office or Vista - That is the Question>>Yesterday, the following message came in on a local, but low>bandwidth, UE list I'm on:>> One of my design teams is asking me: "Should we follow> the Office standard of the ribbon, the Vista standard of> the drop-down menu (menu bar), or a hybrid of the two?>> Wow, just what I always wanted: a vague question about> standards that has no right answer and huge consequences.>>I thought the question might get more traction here, seeing as the>IxDA list has a much larger membership. I've CC'd Jerome, the>original poster, who you might want to include on any replies as I>don't know if he's on this list.>>:-j(enni)>>________________________________________________________________>*Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah*>February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA>Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/>>________________________________________________________________>Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!>To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org>Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe>List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines>List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help

Might be better to classify Office's old icon toolbars as intermediate
aids,
since experts I have observed (admin assistants, typists, etc) have most
of
the common toolbar action keystrokes memorized, and only use the toolbar
and
text menu for items that don't have an shortcut key, or whose key isn't
obvious.

At any rate, your statement is still true, but perhaps the above (if you
provide shortcut keys) will mitigate the loss from switching to ribbons.

I just got Office 2007 myself, and appreciate the improved information
architecture, although I think displaying 15 different cell-box styles
right
there in the ribbon makes Excel 2007 seem more feature-rich than it
really
is (I rarely use pre-built styles, but have begun using theirs more,
which I
guess is a win for Microsoft =]).

The toolbars were an advanced user feature, which
supported very rapid activation - IF you could remember what the icon
meant,
and you could click the small button, and the function you wanted was
there
to begin with. I've often spend long periods of time (in old menu-style
apps) trying to find features in menus that I knew must be there, but
with
several levels of embedding, and no graphical cues they can be very hard
to
find and remember the location of.

> Hi,>> Initially mobile phones used to have Play, Pause, Previous, Next (in> some cases Stop instead of Pause). Of late, quite a few mobile phones> have started adding Forward and Reverse within the current song.>> Does Forward/Reverse add any solid value in a music player for mobile> phones or is it an unnecessary feature creep which can be dropped?>> -- Sachendra Yadav> ________________________________________________________________> *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah*> February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA> Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/>> ________________________________________________________________> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help

Supporting Katie's words about Vista, I think its ridiculous to even
look for Microsoft as an Idol of usability. The real professionals in
my opinion are Apple. I am a Mac fan and I admire Mac OS-X menus and
toolbars.
If you didn't have this great experience, Apple goes for large
"meaningful" icons that are "clearly labeled". The toolbars also
have extensive customization and thorough design of the default
options shown.

For Office 2007, Microsoft was "just" thinking of novice, new users
and if you are an experienced user, then get lost. You won't imagine
that I spent really considerable time to figure out where is the File
menu.

Of course, if you will be launching an application late enough to
keep some time for Microsoft to mind program the world then this
would be Ok if not then please don't torture more people.

I have been using Office 2007 and to be honest, I like the new ribbon.
It kind of makes more sense and the frequently used buttons are bigger
so they're easier to select. About Vista, well, it has some nice
features but looks otherwise unpolished. And the dialogs demanding
authorization every time, what a nightmare! Who the hell had that
idea in the first place?

RSVP to this address (chicago-local(at)ixda.org) as we need to supply
the
security desk with names. We'll give you a contact number upon RSVPing
in
case you encounter any problems.

Even if you don't design currently for mobile devices, it won't be long
before you're asked to. Join in! The success of our events relies on
all of
us sharing what we know and asking about what we don't know.
(Note: We have 80 people on our Chicago event reminder list! A vibrant
community, indeed! If you are interested in planning, hosting, or
leading an
event, please let us know.)

I think it is a really useful feature for (as has been mentioned)
Podcasts and those annoying 'secret tracks' that come 15 minutes into
the last track on a CD. If I haven't been paying enough attention when
ripping, or don't have the time to edit the track it is very useful to
be able to skip through the 11 minutes of silence!
It could be argued that this is initially bad design by the
manufacturers who could just put the track on the CD as a normal track.

> Hi,>> Initially mobile phones used to have Play, Pause, Previous, Next (in> some cases Stop instead of Pause). Of late, quite a few mobile phones> have started adding Forward and Reverse within the current song.>> Does Forward/Reverse add any solid value in a music player for mobile> phones or is it an unnecessary feature creep which can be dropped?

Depends on how the fwd/rev buttons are implemented. Are they separate
buttons, or are they integrated into the next/prev like many cd
players? (i.e. Press the button to skip the track. Hold the button to
scan within the current track.) If the fwd/rev functionality is
mapped to the current physical buttons, then who cares? It's a
transparent feature, and it's not like fwd/rev is overly complex and
buggy. Many people might not even notice that the functionality
exists, and people looking for the functionality will have been
conditioned to expect it on those buttons from interactions with cd
players. If new physical buttons are added, then why was this method
chosen? Is the interface too cluttered? Are the buttons too small?

If you mean "why would someone even use this functionality?" Then
there's plenty of reasons. podcasts, skipping 8 minutes of silence to
get to the "hidden" song on an album. (Now there's a usability
issue! What's up with "hiding" songs?)

Adding features isn't bad per se. It's the addition of features that
interfere with using the product that is bad.

Jing is nice because it works on multiple platforms, but the workflow
in Skitch (OSX-based) is far more streamlined.

I recently wrote a blog post[1] about it to show how we're using it
to our process for providing feedback for wireframes and when
submitting bug tickets. It doesn't handle video, but for screenshots
and such... it's become such a vital addition to my tool belt.

Thank you Robby! Skitch, video: http://plasq.com/skitch#demo looks
perfect for one of my clients.. they usually put all their 'ideas'
in to a ppt. I've put them on to this app, and with the upload to
flickr functionaly, we should be able to get a more fluid
conversation going with a closed flickr album. Cheers! -p

I've been using Jing for internal sharing. If someone doesn't already
have a
tool to use I think it's worth a look. It's a lightweight tool but
quick,
easy to use, and free.

Still captures only capture the viewport, not a whole page, however, you
can
select different regions of a window or screen - for example, full
screen,
just a toolbar, etc.. There are also some rudimentary annotation tools.

Jing records video as well so you can use it to capture, for example,
prototype demos or, of course, training - or demonstrate reference
examples.
It records audio simultaneously.

You can email the finished capture or share it via Jing's online sharing
service - free for a little storage space, fees for more.

I wrote an article on the future of Corporate Design and how this
discipline relates to Enterprise IT, Intranet Design, Software User
Interfaces, and the expected rise of the consolidated Information
Workplace.

> Certainly one of the best UX social events yet. It was great to see> that there was a good contingent of people from the various UX groups> show up.>> Bryan Haggerty>> On Dec 11, 9:53 pm, David Malouf <dave.... at gmail.com> wrote:>> wow! what a turn out and what avfreat mix of people!!! great event!!>>>> I met old friends and a lot of new people.>>>> too dark for photos, though.>>>> - dave>> ________________________________________________________________>> *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah*>> February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA>> Register today:http://interaction08.ixda.org/>>>> ________________________________________________________________>> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!>> To post to this list ....... disc... at ixda.org>> Unsubscribe ................http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe>> List Guidelines ............http://www.ixda.org/guidelines>> List Help ..................http://www.ixda.org/help> ________________________________________________________________> *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah*> February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA> Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/>> ________________________________________________________________> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help

I have installed http://www.jingproject.com/
It has a cool UI with some nice ideas and it%u2019s also pretty easy
to use, the only major problem is that you cannot copy an image to
your clipboard and paste it in another program (Outlook e-mail for
instance),
They missed the most common task for some reason, so, bottom line
I%u2019m going to stay with %u2018Snagit%u2019

> On 12/11/07, Michael Tuminello <mt at motiontek.com> wrote:> >> >> > We could add something to the ixda site that let non-profits submit> > projects for consideration for pro-bono work by our members...>> That sounds like a fabulous idea.

Great idea, indeed!

> Continuing the "give back" theme, we could> also structure something that would allow members with little IxD> experience> to gain some, under the supervision of one or more experienced IxDs.

The concept sounds very good to me. Exposure to projects and senior
guidance
is what I, at least, as a young designer, would benefit most from.
Any other people want to practice interaction design but don't often
have
the chance? If yes, this could go in one of the personas for the list's
members that I read a while ago :)

> I'm> thinking we'd have to set something up that would allow people toindicate
> that they're interesting in either doing or moderating, and then> distribute> projects as they come along.>> Of course this is me blowing it up to large proportions again. : )> Thoughts?>

I'm thinking if a basic tool is in place in the beginning (subscribe
project
+ subscribe to project) , we can substitute the lack of features and
collaborate through ad-hoc e-mails (and maybe other tools on the web).
If
the idea is successful (there are enough projects and enough
volunteers),
then it may be worth blowing it up to larger proportions.

I agree with you Katie, with one exception: if the company is a small
software vendor with a strategic partnership with Microsoft, then doing
the
whole Office 2007 Ribbon thing may get your program shown off by a very
large distributed Microsoft sales team. If I was deciding based upon
usability and user acceptance, traditional Windows-style wins, but there
may
be business reasons for a small vendor to go the other way. Large
well-known
software houses, specialist leaders in their verticals, web shops, or
in-house work can probably safely ignore the '07 Ribbon forever - it's
only
the little software startups on the edge who may want to take the dare
and
hope that the Microsoft sales force benefit outweighs the '07 Ribbon
annoyance.

> At the moment Vista has a very low adoption rate and a very high "Oh,> my God -- let's go back to Windows!" rate...So, I think that at this> point it makes a lot of sense to stick with the Windows> standards...generally speaking.

We are currently conducting training sessions and I haven't seen any
major problems besides the file menu. No one wants to click on it.
Hmmm... maybe because all your other features are clearly pointed out on
the ribbon, so why hide others under a big round button?

The contextual ribbons which only appear when certain items are selected
are great. I have noticed if you include more than 2 sub-tabs within a
contextual ribbon it causes some confusion as to which features appear
on which tab.

I will warn you that it took a LONG time to organize everything
correctly. Some users would get very annoyed from having to click back
and forth between the tabs. Try to keep items that they use frequently
on the main tab to avoid this.

What appeals to me most about Jing is the quick video snagging. I always
want to capture interesting dynamic interactions for later reference
(you never know when a site will be redesigned and your great example
will be gone)!

This is the first tool I've seen that can help me do this quickly, but
to be honest I've never looked into it much. Are there other great tools
I've missed?

How do other people keep track of interesting interaction examples?

(I've used Skitch at home but we use Windows in the office, so I'm stuck
there...)

I made the switch to Office 2007 and have found the ribbon to work, on
the whole, better than the old file menus. The round File Menu button
is probably the worst part, and while confusing at first, did not take
long to learn. Microsoft certainly should have rethought the
placement and styling of that button to make it clearer what's in
there.

With that being said, they have added one accelerator that I think is
a great idea. The user can scroll through the ribbon's tabs using
the mouse wheel if they hover over the general area. Used properly,
this reduces clicks through the tabs and makes it easier to
"browse" through the available features with little commitment in
terms of action. I wonder how this works for most other users and
whether it improves their experience.

I'm looking for recommendations on a collaborative design tool that can
be used in meetings with remote teams. The tool I'm looking for
replaces the "everyone-getting-together
and-working-through-design-ideas-on-the-whiteboard", which is great
when everyone is in the same location, but doesn't work so well for
remote participants.

Ideally, the tool would allow each member to add, edit, and comment the
design, while other members can see real-time updates and participate
in the live discussion (which is happening over a separate voice
conference, if need be.)

I'm open to any suggestion - relatively low or hi-fi - so long as you
feel it works reasonably well (no major performance issues, rendering
issues, etc.) My motivation for using a tool like this is to work
through design ideas with the remote team I'm supporting, in
advance of providing them with a full UI spec.
Trying to bridge that
"throw it over the wall" gap that can happen when team members aren't
co-located.

Thanks in advance for your ideas and suggestions,

Nina

________________________________________________________________________
____________
Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page.http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

So, this seems to gel with what people have said, in that it is both
tangible and possibly doable for Feb, and also a framework rather than
just a one-off.

As a next step, maybe we generate a list of things we'd like to be
able to do with it? please feel free to chip in to the list below.
It's great people on the list (susie at least) already have experience
with doing something like this.

* nice to have: ability to add notes to the individually submitted
proposals ("ie - I looked over your proposal, and I think you need to
more clearly define what you need done before anyone will take it on",
or "did you know this functionality is already available from this
open source project?")

* nice to have - ability for project submitter to receive any notes
posted to their project via email

* nice to have: ability to look back at finished projects

* nice to have: ability to attach case study summaries to finished
projects. (so people can browse through old projects as an
educational resource)

* general requirement: minimize or eliminate the need for a system
owner/admin. should be as community-driven as possible

* possible requirement: privacy - need to protect/hide contact info

Michael

On Dec 11, 2007, at 2:00 PM, Fred Beecher wrote:

> On 12/11/07, Michael Tuminello <mt at motiontek.com> wrote:>>>>>> We could add something to the ixda site that let non-profits submit>> projects for consideration for pro-bono work by our members...>>> That sounds like a fabulous idea. Continuing the "give back" theme,> we could> also structure something that would allow members with little IxD> experience> to gain some, under the supervision of one or more experienced IxDs.> I'm> thinking we'd have to set something up that would allow people to> indicate> that they're interesting in either doing or moderating, and then> distribute> projects as they come along.>> Of course this is me blowing it up to large proportions again. : )> Thoughts?>> Fred> ________________________________________________________________> *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah*> February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA> Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/>> ________________________________________________________________> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help

On 12/12/07, Michael Tuminello <mt at motiontek.com> wrote:
>>> As a next step, maybe we generate a list of things we'd like to be> able to do with it? please feel free to chip in to the list below.> It's great people on the list (susie at least) already have experience> with doing something like this.

Excellent list (and an ingenious method of representing a hierarchical
list
in plain text, heh)! I think that pretty much covers the project-focused
aspect of this activity. I do have one question though... will
non-profits
*know* what kind of expertise they need? I'm guessing they might know
that
their site is hard to use or that it's not accomplishing their goals,
but
not why.

The other half of this activity is getting IxDA'ers signed up and
assigned
to projects. To do this, we'll need to allow people to create and manage
their profiles. A profile would include:

*Desired role
**Participant - Standard (just an IxDA'er doing some good)
**Participant - Mentee (doing good while getting experience)
**Mentor (5+ years exp. in the field, assisting those indicating they
are
mentees)
**Project manager (not sure about this one, but it seemed worth
mentioning)

Going back to my question about "type of expertise needed," maybe that's
something a human "moderator" could determine? Some generous soul in the
IxDA could volunteer to moderate pro-bono requests, distributing them to
participants based on areas of interest & expertise.

Thoughts?

Another aspect of this project would need to be *promoting it* to the
non-profits. But that's probably a completely separate discussion.

I was discussing a new project with someone from our Sales group, and
they asked me how I kept track of fields in case they were dropped
from the actual implementation for some reason. I said that I kept old
versions of the wire frames and usually commented any changes
following the first version.

However, I realized that not only didn't I keep a master list of UI
elements, I'd never actually seen one outside of wire frames.

In my previous life as a systems engineer, this type of directory of
all database and system fields would have very likely been a piece of
the project.

So, does anybody on this list create a deliverable of this nature? If
so, are there specific conditions under which you would do this? Most
of my colleagues just create the wire frames and let them speak for
themselves.

I don't have a hardened process, but for projects that need to build on
what
I've done (long term), I tend to deliver the following:
Functioning DHTML prototype connecting all of the graphic assets
together
Documented CSS explaining what the key styles are
Palette file listing the colors used in the CSS
Bulleted list of common and unique graphic elements, plus names of their
master files (PNG from Fireworks) and prod files (GIF or JPG)
PNG files containing the last iteration of wireframes or mockups
(whichever
is most relevant to the prototype)

I'd say I probably have time to do ALL of the above for about 10% of
projects. Another 30% get the basic gist of the above, missing one or
two
items here or there.

I did most of the graphics for my last company's enterprise portal, so I
finally built a web index of all translated buttons, styles and graphic
elements relevant for portlet developers. It turned out to be pretty
popular, and survived about five years. To my knowledge, they're still
using it. Since I quasi-managed most of the redesigns over the years, I
tried to avoid having to replace all of the translated elements we built
over time. It really illustrated how prior planning could have reduced
our
being locked into one goofy rounded rectangle button style (which I
hated
after about...a month).

Something that would be handy is a little utility that could take a
nested
folder containing all of the above and let you document each one in a
tabular form layout, then deliver to the customer in web or PDF form.
I'd
pay for that =]

So, does anybody on this list create a deliverable of this nature? If
so, are there specific conditions under which you would do this? Most
of my colleagues just create the wire frames and let them speak for
themselves.

I realise this isn't the question that was asked, but what I often wish for in podcasts is best explained with an example.

I'm listening to CBC Radio's hourly news podcast, but the current news story doesn't interest me; I want to skip to the next story. A "Forward" button would offer me nothing that I don't already get from dragging or scrubbing the playback head through the timeline (or pressing-and-holding the FFwd knob on my MP3 player). What I really want is a podcast that enables signposts, so that I can quickly jump between news stories.

-=- Jerome

14 Dec 2007 - 9:43am

Jack L. Moffett

2005

On Dec 14, 2007, at 2:30 AM, Jerome Ryckborst wrote:

> What I really want is a podcast that enables signposts, so that I> can quickly jump between news stories.

Which is what you get with an enhanced podcast created using the
capabilities added in Apple's AAC format. They call them chapters. Of
course, that only works with iPods, as far as I know, so typically,
only Mac-related podcasts do this. It's also typically a separate
feed from the standard version of the podcast.

I am in search of the
simple elegant seductive
maybe even obvious IDEA.
With this in my pocket
I cannot fail.

- Tibor Kalman

14 Dec 2007 - 11:14am

Meredith Noble

2010

> I'm listening to CBC Radio's hourly news podcast, but the current news> story doesn't interest me; I want to skip to the next story. A"Forward"
> button would offer me nothing that I don't already get from draggingor
> scrubbing the playback head through the timeline (orpressing-and-holding
> the FFwd knob on my MP3 player). What I really want is a podcast that> enables signposts, so that I can quickly jump between news stories.

Jerome, for an example of "chapters" as described by Jack, check out the
CBC Radio 3 podcast on this page:

I am a bit of a CBC podcast junkie -- to my knowledge Radio 3 is the
only one who uses chapters. It's too bad. I would particularly like to
see them on the regional podcasts. (The Toronto podcast, at least, is
made up of 3 segments from different shows, and if I don't like the
first one, it's a struggle to find the start of the second!)

The CBC Radio 3 podcast was actually my first encounter with chapters
in podcasts and I loved it... I still look for it in all my other
podcast subscriptions and am consistently disappointed.

It's what makes podcasts more usable than a recording of a live radio
show or a long MP3 delivered to my computer..

On Dec 14, 2007 11:14 AM, Meredith Noble <meredith at usabilitymatters.com> wrote:
> Jerome, for an example of "chapters" as described by Jack, check out the> CBC Radio 3 podcast on this page:>>http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/index.html?arts>> I am a bit of a CBC podcast junkie -- to my knowledge Radio 3 is the> only one who uses chapters. It's too bad. I would particularly like to> see them on the regional podcasts. (The Toronto podcast, at least, is> made up of 3 segments from different shows, and if I don't like the> first one, it's a struggle to find the start of the second!)